After 17 years of hoax-busting, the time has come to call it a day. It has been our pleasure to serve you since 1999, and we are honored to have been one of the trusted sources that you chose for hoax debunking. But all good things must come to an end, and Hoax Busters is no different. As of January 1, 2017, we are officially retired.
The tenor of hoaxes has changed through the years. These days, it's all about conspiracy theories and political misinformation. Those types of hoaxes are spread by folks whose only interest is in reading news that conforms to their point of view. No matter the actual facts, people will believe what they want to, and truth is irrelevant. Walter Quattrociocchi, the head of the Laboratory of Computational Social Science at IMT Lucca in Italy, has spent several years studying how conspiracy theories and misinformation spread online. He explained that institutional distrust is so high, and cognitive bias so strong, that the people who fall for hoax news stories are frequently only interested in consuming information that conforms with their views — even when it's demonstrably fake.
Fortunately, there are several other excellent hoax-debunking websites from which to choose. In no particular order, we recommend:Hoax-Slayer, TruthOrFiction.com, FactCheck.org, PolitiFact, Washington Post Fact Checker, ThatsFake.com, ThatsNonsense.com, and, of course, Snopes.com. If you're one of those that believe that Snopes is not trustworthy, or has a left-leaning liberal bias, please read THIS.
Thank you to all that have visited Hoax Busters through the years. We truly appreciate the confidence that you placed in us. It is important to note that we do not have, and never did have, a Facebook, Twitter, or other social media-type of page, so any Hoax Busters-labeled page is not ours or sanctioned by us.
As the poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote in "The Day is Done," we shall now fold our tents and silently steal away.